Sauce in a cottage pie

grahamor · 22-07-2020 2:58pm #1

Hi,

I'm wondering how you make a cottage pie with a decent amount of sauce/gravy in the meat layer. Is the sauce essentially the fat from the beef mixed with a stock cube and some flour ?

I tried it with some 5% fat beef mince and it feels like i should have used one with a higher fat content.

Thanks for any tips

Boards.ie: Niamh · 22-07-2020 3:00pm

Hi grahamor, I have moved your query to the Food forum where you will hopefully get some good responses

phormium · 22-07-2020 3:29pm

You don't need that much fat really, it's the flour that thickens. When I fry meat for cottage pie I then add a few tablespoons of flour, stir that around in pan with meat to cook a little, add a dash of worchestershire sc, bit of tomato puree, stock if you have it and then just let it bubble away until cooked, the flour will thicken the sauce. The more flour/water/stock you add the more gravy you get

woodchuck · 22-07-2020 3:44pm

phormium wrote: »

You don't need that much fat really, it's the flour that thickens. When I fry meat for cottage pie I then add a few tablespoons of flour, stir that around in pan with meat to cook a little, add a dash of worchestershire sc, bit of tomato puree, stock if you have it and then just let it bubble away until cooked, the flour will thicken the sauce. The more flour/water/stock you add the more gravy you get

I agree with this. The amount of gravy depends on the amount of stock (or other liquid) you add. The thickness of the gravy depends on how much flour you add. Like phormium, I mix the flour into the cooked meat first before adding the stock - if you try to add more flour after the stock has been added, you'll end up with floury lumps in your gravy!

Purgative · 22-07-2020 6:56pm

I don't put flour in mine at all. Although I'd imagine that there are as many cottage pie variations as there are people.

Anyway - my way.

Fry off the lean butchers mince
Add a stock cube
Optional add muchrooms

Add a tin of tomatoes or pasata

optional jar of baby carrots (discard juice)

Taste and adjust seasoning/ Worcester sauce

Set in pie dish
Top with potatoes (mashed or sliced)
Top with grated cheese and slices of tomato (if feeling especially frivolous)
and bake for about 35 mins at 180 C

dartboardio · 23-07-2020 12:03am

I dont bother with flour

We make cottage pie from scratch all the time

Fry some onion, season. Add your mince and whatever else veg, peas we use. Season.

Then we put in some Worcestershire sauce, maybe 2 tbsp, a beef stock cube, little bit of rosemary, salt, pepper.

You could use some instant gravy if you wanted aswell but I usually put that on top.

Stargazer7 · 23-07-2020 12:38am

I think the other replies have you covered from the sauce / gravy point of view.

With regard to the mince...obviously health / lifestyle depending but I would advocate at least 8/10% beef mince as the extra bit of fat does add good flavour to the sauce and give a more moist texture to the beef overall. If you wanted to lighten the recipe you could substitute some of the mince with green or red lentils. Hope this is of use!

3d4life · 25-07-2020 9:57pm

woodchuck wrote: »

I agree with this. The amount of gravy depends on the amount of stock (or other liquid) you add. The thickness of the gravy depends on how much flour you add. Like phormium, I mix the flour into the cooked meat first before adding the stock - if you try to add more flour after the stock has been added, you'll end up with floury lumps in your gravy!

Remark in passing : If you use rice flour I think you will find that this does not happen

( other point of note about rice flour is that it does not contain gluten )

Dubl07 · 25-07-2020 10:09pm

Mince, onions, peppers, fried until mince is cooked and onions are translucent.
No flour, two Oxo red, crumbled in. *
¼ cup Lea & Perrins.
Salt, pepper, 1 heaped tsp mild curry powder. Cook for 5 mins.
Put the mix in a deep casserole. Add enough boiling water to get ½" from the top. Add a cup of frozen peas. Cover with your mashed potatoes. Bake.

Enough tasty gravy without the clagginess of a thickener.
*If you decide that you need thickener, potato flour works best.

L1011 · 25-07-2020 10:22pm

I occasionally fire some ketchup in - tomato puree, acid, sugar all in one.

woodchuck · 27-07-2020 11:42am

L1011 wrote: »

I occasionally fire some ketchup in - tomato puree, acid, sugar all in one.

I use my Mam's recipe, which includes a good squirt of ketchup too

the beer revolu · 27-07-2020 12:19pm

Question for people who put cheese and/or tomatos on top (my dad used to do this);

Don't you miss the gorgeous crispy mashed potato that forms on top of potato topped pies?

Purgative · 27-07-2020 12:21pm

the beer revolu wrote: »

Question for people who put cheese and/or tomatos on top (my dad used to do this);

Don't you miss the gorgeous crispy mashed potato that forms on top of potato topped pies?

But you have the crispy cheese and baked toms - yummy

Tree · 27-07-2020 11:15pm

Crispy mash on top, all the way.

Bisto (boxed) for the gravy, i believe it's mostly potato starch.

It's definitely vegetarian, so that and marmite go in the vegan cottage pie base. I don't bother w/ the marmite when i make the beef version.

Sauce in a cottage pie

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